My mother amuses me sometimes. She routinely sends my brother and I these scam/troll/hoax emails she receives, asking us if they're legit. Today's was about this Michael Lombardi guy who is predicting a major financial crisis in America. He has supposedly predicted five previous financial issues the country has dealt with in the last 10 years or so. So I have a boatload of fun crafting (literally crafting, editing, re-thinking, etc.) sarcastic emails that get the point across without actually saying "If you buy this for a minute, you're dumb". For the record, she's not dumb, I think she's just easily influenced by things like this.

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Dear Newsmax Reader: Please find below a special message from our sponsor, Lombardi's Crisis Profit Alert. They have some important information to share with you.

Thank you. Newsmax.com

Dear Reader:Something very big will happen in America within the next 180 days. It will be more devastating than the credit crisis of 2008. For most people, it will hit them like a brick wall. It will touch Americans harder and deeper than anything else we've seen since the Great Depression. Michael Lombardi feels so strongly about this, he's decided to present his "Critical Warning Number Six" in a new video.

In case you're not familiar with him...

Michael Lombardi has been widely recognized as predicting five major economic events over the past 10 years. In 2002, he started advising his readers to buy gold–related investments when gold traded under $300 an ounce. In 2006, he begged his readers to get out of the housing market...before it plunged. He was among the first (back in late 2006) to predict that the U.S. economy would be in a recession by late 2007. Michael correctly predicted the crash in the stock market of 2008 and early 2009. Finally, Michael turned bullish on stocks in March of 2009 and rode the bear market rally from a Dow Jones Industrial Average of 6,440 on March 9, 2009, to 12,876 on May 2, 2011—a gain of 99%.

I call Michael's new video controversial because most people will not like what he has to say...they will find it hard to believe until they see all the facts as Michael presents them. Michael's first five predictions have already come true. Now he's issuing Critical Warning Number Six. I urge you to be among the first to see this new video here now. Link

Yours truly,

Wendy Potter, BAManaging EditorLombardi Publishing CorporationNews, Analysis and Information Services Since 1986One Million Customers in 141 Countries---Copyright 2012; Lombardi Publishing Corporation. All rights reserved. No part of this e-newsletter may be used or reproduced in any manner or means, including print, electronic, mechanical, or by any information storage and retrieval system whatsoever, without written permission from the copyright holder.---Dear Reader: There is no magic formula to getting rich. Success in investment vehicles with the best prospects for price appreciation can only be achieved through proper and rigorous research and analysis. The opinions herein are just that, opinions of the authors. Information contained herein, while believed to be correct, is not guaranteed as accurate. Warning: Investing often involves high risks and you can lose a lot of money. Please do not invest with money you cannot afford to lose.

Just wanted to share, in case anybody has so little to do that they can afford to waste the next 20 minutes or so listening to the linked video.

For the record, my response was as follows:

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Well, first of all, you received this from Newsmax, so I was inclined to dismiss it outright without even looking into it. 5 minutes of research on Google doesn’t make Newsmax look particularly reputable. However, being open-minded, I said “What the heck!” and looked anyway. First off, the guy spends the first 5-6 minutes telling you how awesome he is. This is the first time I’ve ever heard of the guy. If he was as awesome as he thinks he is, I would undoubtedly have heard of him before now, as he would be on the news all over the place telling the world what he “knows”. As it is, he’s peddling his knowledge in an internet newsletter. If he was really that knowledgeable and able to tell us what’s coming down the line, nobody would have to find out from his internet newsletter. I can start talking and go on and on for 20 minutes and there’s a fairly high likelihood that I’ll say something that will come true at some point in the future. Watch:

“The electric guitar is a very popular instrument in today’s culture. It is available in as many brand names, colors, shapes, sizes, and prices as there are people in the (my parents) household on any given holiday. However, a disturbing trend has been observed: With the continued slaughter of the rainforests in the Amazon and the resulting displacement of previously uncontacted indigenous tribal colonies, the availability of quality wood for the construction of the electric guitar becomes more and more scarce every day. With the increased demand from the highly impressionable “tweenie” crowd for guitars that can stand up to the down-tuning that today’s suck-tastic musical landscape seems to favor, I have no doubt that within five years, the average prices of electric guitars in general will have risen by $200, a 40% increase. In fact, I expect it.”

Take a few things you actually know about something and put some scary sounding “facts” in it and it sounds pretty legitimate. Looking around on Google, I cannot really find anything about this guy being recognized for predicting five major events. The only place I find that is on sites that are posting his messages verbatim. It sounds like HE is the only one recognizing himself for these predictions.

Then if you follow the link and are capable of staying conscious throughout the presentation (I was not mentally capable of making it the end), it starts to look more and more like “Hey, sign up for my shit!” His company sells the report he’s hawking for $95, but you can get it for free. How nice of him. I wonder what I have to sign up for to get it for free? It probably says at the end of the video, but like I said, I didn’t get that far. I literally would’ve preferred to go find some wet paint and watch it dry. However, Mrs. Cozmo took one for the team and actually suffered through to the end. Hey look at that, you can “be one of the fortunate ones” who’ll be saved from “Financial Armageddon”. All you gotta do is pony up $195 to sign up for his newsletters! I wonder how many people he scared into signing up for his newsletters. I predict that he has one hell of a bank balance. I predict that most of his followers don’t. In fact, I will go on to predict that within the next month, at least 30 more people will be bilked out of $195 under the belief that their lives are going to be turned upside down financially. Another $5,850 in his bank account. I am an unparalleled visionary. I bet nobody’s ever heard of me. I should start a newsletter.

I pretty much stay of the mindset that the economy is never really going to get “better” per se. We’re always going to have financial hardships and the reality is that it ISN’T likely to really ever get better. If shit hits the fan, then it does. What can anybody do about it? Go along with it and do your best to get by. Easy enough for even me to predict.